The Ringer-Verse - ‘What If…?’ Episode 3 Instant Reactions and MCU Phase 4 Primer | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

The Midnight Boys give their thoughts on the third episode of ‘What If…?’ and decide who their replacement Avengers team would be if the original squad was taken out (07:00). Later, the boys dive into Phase 4 with Charles’s reactions to the ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ trailer, the early positive reviews of ‘Shang-Chi,’ and the latest ‘Eternals’ trailer (40:00). Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Production Assistant: Jonathan Kermah Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gene and Roger is the story of the two most powerful, influential movie critics of their time, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. You can find Gene and Roger on the Big Picture feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a quick trailer. It seemed like a crazy idea for a TV show. Take two rivals and let them duke it out about movies. But Gene Sisko and Roger Ebert quickly became the most popular film critics in the country. Millions of viewers tuned in to see whether they vote thumbs up or thumbs down. This is the story of two unlikely superstars who changed the way we argue. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Brian Raftery, and this is Gene and Roger.

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Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Welcome into the ringer versus. This is the ringers nexus podcast fee for all things fandom.

If you're listening to my voice, you know what realm you're in. It is I, Van Lathen, Jr., host of Higher Learning with Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathen. I am joined, of course, by my. My whole boy, my fellow writer, Charles Holmes, host of the Ringer music show. We are, of course, joined, joined by joined, joined, joined, joined. Listen, you guys understand something. Before we even get to this episode, Bozeman is not feeling good.

So my dog has been waking me up all night long. So we're playing her here. The dog woke me up, 1 o'clock. I wanted to give the dog away today. So we're playing her. Getting the cobwebs out of my head. It was like a newborn baby all night long, but you guys know who Jomey is.

Jomi Adelan, Jomi the Explaner, who is our guy who helps us get all the cobwebs out of our head. And we're joined with somebody new as well. Sixth Eve is on vacation doing something disgusting somewhere. So we're joined by Jonathan Kerma, a young little wee, wee baby of the ringer. It is his birthday today. His LeBron year, as he said.

His LeBron year, number 23, his LeBron year. All right. He is an honorary for the day, Midnight Boy. And when we say the Midnight Bull Boys, we got to give you guys a... Okay. First of all, Jonathan, we really appreciate you joining us today and helping us out since Sixth Steve is on vacation. We don't know what Sixth Steve is doing.

He's a sick bastard. Steve did come out vacation to do the Spider-Man Instant Reaction trailer show with me and Matt Where were you, by the way, Charles, for this instant reaction show to the trailer?

Where were you, Charles? Guys, I was in the multiverse, okay? You know what I'm saying? I fucked around. I was just like, I went to Dr. Strange and I'm like, can you erase all these people who are hating on me on Facebook from the timeline?

And he's like, yes, and then it all went awry. So, but I'm back now. So, yeah, Jonathan, happy birthday. Before the end of the show, we're going to give you your own midnight nickname. Okay. That's what we're going to do. We've got to think of something because like Jonathan, I worked with him on one of his first things here at the ringer. He's a little baby.

He just understood the world. I taught him about the birds and the bees. Really? Good for you. I lied on these head. He had questions. He was like he like he like, he came to us one time. Real quick story. He came to us one time and he was like, you know, I got a, I got a date with a girl. And I was like, yeah. Okay, cool. That's awesome, bro. like, you know, be a gentleman, make sure you don't get hashtag or anything like that. We don't want that to happen to you.

So make sure you be a gentleman. And he goes, but I don't know what to do. Like, how do I know if I like you? No, I'm not in these shit out. Jonathan, stop, Jonathan, stop. Van, you're such a good mentor. Jonathan, stop, stop.

Seriously, it's okay. It's an era of blackmail vulnerability. It's okay. So, you know, after the podcast was over, you know, I, I took him to the side. I was like, listen. Sometimes when two people really like each other, they go out on the date.

And that's why I give him some tips and some stuff like that. And then, you know, and hopefully it worked out for him. But he didn't really know. You're like the Iron Man, the Tony Stark to Kerm's Peter Parker. A whole lot of cap going on right now. That's his nickname, Jonathan Little Spider, Kermmer. That's the nickname. Little Spidey.

That's his nickname. That's his little Spitey. He's a little. Kerm is just as precocious as a little Tom Holland. Like, I love him. He is the same way. Like, he's like, little spidey. Little spidey.

Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark. All right, couple of program reminders. On Monday, we did a live house of midnight. Green Room instant reaction to the Spider-Man trailer, which I thought was a fantastic trailer.

on Friday we have the House of Mal coming back the last episode was great the friend of the Ring Reverse Jason Manzookas was with Mal love you Jason it was a great show you have to follow the Ring ofverse on all the socials we're talking about Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

on this episode though they're going to be heavy MCU talk because there is a ridiculous amount of MCU news this might be the most newsy time that I can remember in recent memory in terms of everything colliding at once in terms of the MCU.

There's a lot of MCU news going on right now. So we have to discuss it. We have to talk about it. We're going to dig into some phase four storylines and we're going to talk about the Spider-Man trailer with Charles Holmes who I did not get a chance to discuss it with yet. And I'm sure that you want everybody to know

what your thoughts on the trailer were. Absolutely. Absolutely, I'm ready. Okay, but before we do any of this, we have to dig into the main event of the podcast, which is our recap, our instant recap of what if episode three, which takes a look at the world without the earth's mightiest heroes, the Avengers. But before we do any of that stuff, we have to do this.

It's a recap podcast, but we still got to do it every time. A little spidey, go ahead and run that spoiler warning. We're getting ready to talk about the episode. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. All right, Chuck, this is a Nick Fury episode. It's an alternate take on the building of the Avengers. Posts the question, is Nick Fury technically the first Avenger?

What are your immediate thoughts to what if episode three? I think they had a very, very tough challenge on their hands after the excellent second episode. I don't think there was like a world where they would like make a follow-up that like got, that reached the emotions of that episode. So it's really,

really tough for me to talk about this episode because it's just like, it wasn't as kooky and it wasn't as inventive. It was just very much kind of like the first episode, almost kind of like a shot for shot retelling of some of the early MCU shows with a twist at the end, which, yeah, I thought

it was a little uneven. What about you? I liked it. I enjoyed it. I watched it, I think, three times because like I said, I was up, I was up last night with Bozerly, Wozerley, the Wonder Pup, aka Mr. Doggely, aka The Wozor, aka Bozeman. And I watched it a couple times. I enjoyed it. I watched it. I liked it the more that I watched it,

just because I think that it had a different feel. See, here's the thing about it. When you come from an episode that had such wonder as a last one you said, and this one is more of a cloak and dagger kind of spy, tense, talked, almost thriller of an episode. I mean, we're watching the Avengers get killed in serial killer fashion, you know?

That's almost got like a watchman feel to it, at least the beginning of watchman, when we thought that there was a serial killer to run around killing masks for whatever reason. And that's hard to pull off during animation, I think. I think, to be honest with you, of the three that we've seen, this would have been the best one if they had the live action actors. Of the three that we've seen with what you can do with actual emotion coming from people and with how tense things can play, how the drama can build and the villain reveal at the end, this would have been the best one. to actually have real actors doing it.

As it stands animated, it is better than one, not quite as good as two. But I enjoyed it though. I liked it though. I would say that I think the difficult part of this episode specifically is because it is like a procedural where someone is trying to find a serial killer,

the animation style doesn't work as much because it's supposed to be like, to your point, like, if this is live action, it could be a little bit creepier, it could be a little darker, it could be a little bit more intense, but like, we don't get a lot of the emotions on the faces

of like watching a Tony Stark die. You know what I mean? We have the limitations of like what they can do with the CGI faces. And I was just like, I agree with you. I do think that this is the, this is one where I'm just like, this would have been a really,

really cool like TV show, movie, but as an animated thing, it's just really hard to pull off this type of story. No, and don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. I liked it. I thought it was good. I thought it was great. I thought it was interesting to delve into Nick Furious world a little bit.

I thought it was interesting to look at how the life of Nick Fury actually goes, because we ingest these Marvel movies as sort of stand-alone epics, stand-alone epics where these stories are taking place themselves. So, like, what I mean by that is they're episodic, but they come one after another. So, but that's not Nick Furious world. Yeah. And in this, Iron Man 2 was overlapping with Thor at the same time. Of course, we knew that.

But Iron Man 2, Thor, and Hulk were all happening at the same time. All right. So that's my big question. Is that just in this timeline? or are they saying that even in the MCU, Thor, Ironman 2, Hulk was all happening

on multiple days because I'm just like there's no way. How are you guys doing? Jomey. I got to Jomey. You explainer. Well, whoa, whoa, hold on for a second. Hold on for a second.

Wait a second, real quick. Jomey? Yes. You're the explainer. Uh-huh. Okay. You didn't even let Coke baby Chuck

get his thought out completely. No, I've been holding on to this before you came off the top rope. Listen, this is what happens, guys. Like this is what in any great sci-fi dystopian movie, what happens is the AI that you go to to give you answers, to plot your course ends up taking over. Think about it. 2000.

Think about it. Like the fucking evil AI. and the other, I'm blanking on it now. Like these AIs, they end up taken over. And that's what's happening right now. Skynet. You're seeing the beginnings. Jomey's white vision.

In my opinion. Whoa, whoa, whoa. White vision. You're seeing the beginning of Jomi the explainer, the voice coming in, taking over the Midnight Boys. I'm here, I just want to make sure that people know that it's

happening. Because Charles was like, is it all happening? Jomey's, I have the answers. Jomi, please, let us know. Please, jump in. Let us know, Jome. All right. So in 2012, Marvel released a series of comics titled Nick Fury's Big Week.

And they are canon to the MCU. And it's basically one week where he has to deal with the events of Iron Man 2, the original Thor, and the Incredible Hulk from 2008. It's, you know, it's wild because, you know, how the movies, you know, were released, you know, Incredible Hulk 2008. You have Iron Man 2 in 2010 and then Thor in 2011. So it's like, what? But those comics brought the timeline, you know, of that week together.

In fact, you know, we get the Thor after credit scene in Iron Man 2. But then if you watch near the end of Iron Man 2 when Nick Fury and Tony Stark are having that conversation, there are screens in the background. And you can see that The Incredible Hulk is playing like, you know, like live footage of what happened that the college is playing in the background there. So that is very candid to the MCU that all of that occurred within one week.

There you go. You got your answer, Chuck. You didn't know. I will say that to me just like, I think that is cute. I also think it's very funny that they're trying to convince me. Nick Fury was all these places in the span of like five days. He's like in L.A.

and then he was in the Midwest and then he was back again. There's no way. Why can he do it? Why can't he do it? How was he getting there? special shield technology. They got special planes. The Quinjet can go to space, bro.

Wait, why did they ever do the thing in the comics where, like, Nick Fury has a bunch of, like, robots going around? So Nick Fury is always getting killed. But they're just like, oh, no, it's a robot, Nick Fury. I always wish they would have done this in the movies. That's a tangent, though. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. To be fair to all, boy, he was only in L.A. in New Mexico.

I don't think he went out to see The Hulk. and I guess he started, you know, in Iron Man 2 and then went to Thor. So it's not really that big of a drive. Yeah. Yeah, we can't, we're not going to do it on the podcast clocking Nick Fury's Miles. We got to draw the line at the Midnight Boys' Tangents somewhere.

So the Hulk film is in here. We don't ever talk about the Hulk film. I actually don't mind the Hulk film, but most people hate it with a white-hot scene. For the time, it was not that bad. I rewatched it a couple years ago. Not that bad. I will say, I was just like,

it is very funny how, like, they tried to do the thing where it's like, no, this is Mark Ruffalo. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Mark Ruffalo wasn't in this film. This is weird. I get why they had to do it. But when I saw his face, I just like, oh, yeah, they did replace it.

So how they killed the Hulk in this movie is, once again in this episode, should I say, angered me. I was angered. Yeah. even knowing that, you know, it was the Yellow Jacket, aka Hank Pim, the entire time that was up to no good, he wanted a revenge mission, which is a good foil for the Avengers. And I'll tell you why he's a good, he's a good villain for them because he's one of the top five smartest guys in all of Marvel and all the MCU. And like, that's almost having like a Tony Stark against you.

So if anybody can figure out ways to beat the Avengers, it would be Pim. And I think that was great writing to have him be the antagonist in this. But we just got to talk about how Marvel continuously depowers the Hulk. Just sliding the power scale to such an utter degree where I was like, when it happened, I'm like, all right, I get for story reasons why you have to kill the Hulk. I'm like, Hulk's not going out that easy. Like, what are you talking about? The Illuminati had to come together and send the Hulk to another planet to get. to get him to stop fucking shit up.

They have to send him to another planet. Apparently all they need to do was get Hank Pim to go in there and take them out or depower him or something like that. I'm sure they didn't want to kill him. But that to me opens up. I'm like, all right, why don't you do that to Thanos then? Like, what, like, it's such a stupid way

to kill somebody like that. I was just like, that was the part of it. I was just like, all right, it's a cartoon. I guess. I'll let it fucking slide. You let it slide. All right. A couple of changes, a couple of parallels.

Loki comes to Earth to actually avenge Thor. And this is the reason why we first get Loki coming to Earth. And of course, by the end of the episode, Loki is up to his old tricks. He is burdened with glorious purpose. And that purpose doesn't stop just because he's coming to avenge his brother. This is how he gets to Earth. And now he is going to try to take us over.

Is he president Loki from Loki? Do we think that that's the version that we're getting? in probably another episode telling the story of President Loki. Maybe. That's what I immediately thought. Yeah, I mean, look, we had thought that we touched on that

a little bit in the Loki show that we were going to get, that they were kind of going off of, one of the variants was maybe President Loki. Remember the Loki that had the vote for Loki thing, the whole deal on it? We thought maybe we were getting that, but they didn't quite do it.

It was more like a little bit of a red herring where they just used it as a nod to it and then moved on. But perhaps, maybe, because at this point now you have a president Loki that sort of subjugated a lot of things and you have a new Avengers team starting with Captain America and Captain Marvel

at the end of it which is which was the end which I thought was very strong an Avengers team starting out with those two who the question is who else do they go get who else is out there which Marvel stars or heroes are still out there for them to go get you know because a lot of these people haven't had their origins yet

you know what I mean so who Wait, let me ask you, if you were Nick Fury, who would your Avengers team be if all of the Avengers were killed except for cap? But see, the question is, what timeline are we working for? We're working in this episode, and like, it could take you years to make them, but who are you calling who you know is out there? Okay, so Stephen Strange. You got to get Dr. Strange. You got to still have Spider-Man. the question is do you have ant man now that that pym has done what he's done with his

team i'd argue you don't have spider man or at least you don't have the version of him like he's still running around in his pajamas you know what i'm saying okay so let's do this let's see let's first talk about from the mc you forget about the comics for the mc because the comics we can go pull the people all over the place but we're in the mcu now who do we have at this point all right so think about so ant man you probably don't have, right? You don't have Quicksilver or Wanda. Now, why wouldn't you have them?

Because they got their power from the stone. They got their power from the Tesseract, you're right, okay? So you don't have Quicksilver, you don't have Wanda, you don't have Hulk, you have Captain Marvel, you have Captain America, you have Dr. Strange later.

Yeah. And you're going to, and remember, Dr. Strange has a whole different edict, so getting him to become Avenger, that's going to be a tough sell, you got Dr. Strange. Do you have Black Panther? Ooh, you would still have Black Panther. You would still

have Black Panther. You got Black Panther. So right now you have Cap and Cap and Cap Dr. Strange Black Panther. All right. That's not a bad team.

It's not a bad team, but we're thin, baby. And we need it like we got one big gun. We need at least another big gun, right? We got one big gun. We need at least another big gun. Trying to think who else is available

in this situation. You still, actually, I'm going to amend. We get Spider-Man. He's not going to be as powerful, but he still gets his powers. Tony didn't give him his powers, so we can still get him.

Yeah, but like the mentoring in that whole deal, who's going to take up that mantle? That's going to be Nick Fury now? No, that's going to be Cap. We're going to get the Cap version of being his mentor. Okay. Which I think actually works. Okay.

So Cap is going to be there because so Stark industry still has their eyes and ears on the whole deal. So Cap is going to be there. So you still got Spider-Man. Okay. So now we got sort of a team. So now the Avengers are Captain America, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, Black Panther, Spider-Man. And War Machine. War Machine is out there.

We can get them. We can get, and War Machine. You got War Machine. And to be honest with you. War Machine can now take up, War Machine could actually be Ironman. Yeah, you can get the suit now. War Machine can wear Tony's armor.

So technically you still got Iron Man. You still have Iron Man. You don't have an Iron Man that's as skilled and as knowledgeable with the big brain stuff as Tony Stark. But you still have Iron Man. And then this is a late Dark Horse pick. We need a God. I think you can get SIF.

You can get SIF. You could probably get SIF. Hold on for a second. Yeah. You can probably get Siff. Wait. Couldn't Pepper be Iron Man? I think you could get two.

I think why stop at one? I think because you don't have Tony Smarts, you can have War Machine in the Tony suit, and then you could have, honestly, pepper pots in the War Machine suit. No, no, no, no. Stark is not around to build more. But he has his old suits around.

But we still got the, we kind of rely on Justin Hammer. No, but we still got the old suits. Stark is not around there to build. We're talking about right now, TD. Yeah. We're talking about right now. We're drafting a team with...

We're drafting a team with what we got, okay? And the suits are going to come out a lot slower. And this team is missing some brains, because think about it. No banner, no Tony Stark. We're relying on Shuri. You know what? Shuri could... Hold on.

Shuri can make advancement to these suits, though, if we have White Panther. Ooh! Do we get Wakanda? Actually, do we get Vibrarian suits now? Yeah, we might get my brandy suits. Yeah, yeah, so Shory could do that. Shuri, see? I love how TD, do you see how TD just hated on the black woman?

Say that Sherey can't make more suits. Yeah, T-D out here. Come on, man. I actually like this thing. And he got Jerry. I like this team a lot. I like this team. So we got Shuri now is the brains of the team.

The ladies are taking the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Wakanda's going to be both the bank and the tech house. We do have to kind of compel Black Panther to get into this, right? because, oh, no, things might go the same way with Cap. Things might go to say, we're having too much fun here. We're having too much fun. So what's our team? What's our new Avengers team?

It's Captain America, Captain Marvel, it's Dr. Strange, it's Black Panther, it's Spider-Man, it's Pepper Potts as Iron Man. And we got Siff. And we got Siff, who is not a suitable replacement for Thor, just letting you know. Not suitable, but we need, we need, like, a warrior. An Asgardian. We need a Asgardian. And I think, like, out of all of them,

like, I don't even know if, like, Jane Foster is worthy enough to pick up the hammer. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to go SIF. She's going to be worthy in the movie, but I don't know at this juncture if she's worthy. This is SIF with me and here.

Oh, you think she could lift it? I mean, I don't know if she can lift it, but I'm saying in your version of this, does Siff have them? me and there. I don't think she can lift it. I don't think anybody can lift it yet. Okay, cool. Except for Captain America. But, okay, all right, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta get back.

We gotta get back on schedule. That was too much more fun than watching the episode, to be honest. We gotta get back on schedule. We gotta get back on schedule. Sorry, guys. I know we've been running the tight ship here at the Midnight Boys, but the reality is that it was fun to make that team. And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, in this alternate reality, somebody's lifting me and there. All right. Somebody's lifting me and here. Somebody's going to be able to do it. All right.

Now, so Hank Pim's yellow jacket. Before we get the note, before we get to reveal that Hank Pim is in fact a villain in this episode, who did you think it was? I was racking my brain trying to figure out who is cunning enough, wily enough, powerful enough to take out all the Avengers. because they've been trying to kill the Avengers for movies and movies and movies and nobody can get it done, not even Thanos,

and then one guy kills the Avengers in the span of the week. So you want to know the reason why I thought it was a little bit of a cheat to have it be Yellowjacket is like the whole thing hinges on the fact that Hope died, which I'm like happens off screen.

So that to me felt very like, oh, that's cheating a little bit. There's no way we could have guessed that. You know what I mean? Right. So we would have known, that Hope died. So because we didn't know

that Hope died, there would be no way for us to guess that Yellow Jacket was actually the villain here. To me, that's a bad mystery. Like, that's a problem of like, I think the fun of this episode was trying to guess.

And when they're like, yeah, Hope died. So now Hank Pim's evil, I'm like, oh, like, I think you could have done this with his wife dying. And it still would have worked. But she didn't die.

But he thought she was dead. I see. You know what I'm saying? Because he thought she was dead that whole time. really she was in the quantum realm. So you could have used her instead of hope, and it would have made it easier for us to guess who the villain is.

Now, let's say, had they done that, there's no way you would have guessed that Hank Penn was the villain here. But I think there would have been some people who could have at least, at least I'd be like, all right, you play and fair, but you rewrite in history to make this work. I'm like, man, y'all cheating at the mystery game. That's all I. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. For me, I had no clue who it was. Like, literally. I thought the craziest thing was that maybe it was Colson. So as things built up, I thought, wouldn't it be crazy and sick and twisted if they took this character who was essentially Shields mascot, right? And like made him the villain.

I thought that maybe it was Colson. But I didn't see Hank Pimp coming at all. But he made a good villain. He's the guy smart enough and capable enough to pull it all off. So he made for a good villain. Did the power scaling of him seem weird? Um, did the power scaling of him seem weird in what way? What do you mean? Like he was like as yellow jacket, like he was like a threat in a way. I was just like,

I don't know if the Avengers are going out this sad. Like I don't like, you know what I mean? Hulk especially. Same thing with Tony. I'm just like Tony's going out that sad. I mean, it's it. Tony was, it was unexpected. He just got a thing. It's an element of a surprise. I just a little bit like, oh man, this sucks. Same thing with Thor. I'm like, no, man. Thor's going out with an arrow. With an arrow.

It's tough. That was tough to get around. He's like a warrior. You know how many arrows have been shot at Thor across his life? And he can't like catch it even without his powers. I call bullshit on that one. Yeah.

Still, still an ass guardian without the hammer. Do you want me explain to jump in here? All right. Well, Thor versus an arrow. I'm yeah yeah that's tough that's a tough one you can't why are you it jemmy you can't explain that a way you know thor ain't going out with one arrow shot that's here's the thing right you watch the episode and it looks like it gets them right in like the heart right like right in the center of chest like Clint Barton is skilled enough to know you know one shot one kill right he doesn't

know that thor is an as guardian right but he knows like if i got to shoot this arrow i'm gonna kill this dude. And so when Hank Pim, you know, does his little magic trick where he makes Clint shoot the arrow, it's a kill shot. Now should Thor survive a Clint Barton kill shot,

that's a question I think we need to discuss amongst ourselves, you know, and we need to come to peace with that because I kind of feel like, you know, why not? Why? Why can't an arrow kill? If you get shot in the heart with an arrow, Thor is not going out like that

You know how many arrows have been shot Kill shots at Thor? I'm sure he is His reflexes are fast enough to catch an arrow He's not bulletproof though, right? That's a good question I don't think a regular bullet could kill Thor He didn't have his powers

I think a bullet could kill him without powers I don't think an arrow Like I think he would notice an arrow Without Thor's powers he's still an Asgardian. Ooh, that's true. Yeah, but you guys talking about. Like, without Thor's powers,

he's still an Asgardian. Like, like Valkyrie or any of those people. Damn, you're right. He's still from a different plan. Without his powers, he's not like Thor Thor, but he's still, he's still an Asgardian. I don't know that a bullet kill, that a bullet kills.

But he's not a human without the hammer. He's still, like, super strong, like an Asgardian would be. He's still super durable. And I think this is what are you, when you talk about, power scaling van because even thinking back to the original Thor, he gets like run over twice, you know, in the film and like he's messed up,

but then he goes toe to toe with the destroyer without any powers and he's fine. So it's weird, you know, it varies on storytelling, basically. I would be honest with you, this is the most fan boyish episode that we've ever done here at the midnight. They might hate us, but I enjoy this. This is what I would actually do with my boys. Yo, do you think that Superman could say, like, you know, hey, bro, seriously, who went to have a fight between guts and Wolverine? Like, this is the most, but this is what this, I'm seriously.

Wolverine, but continue. I don't know about that. But, but, but, but this is, this is what, this is what, this is what this episode is making us do because, but we're doing something. And as, as a quick and aside aside to the listeners, we realize that you guys are still there. but we're doing something that I've been told not to do a long, long time ago with comic books, which is don't fight the universe. The comic books drop you in the universe, and the comic books are expecting you to abide by the rules that they set,

and they're expecting you not to fight the universe. And what we're doing right now because this episode, this tells me to me that this was an effective episode of What If, because a What If episode should make you ask a lot of questions. Wait, can I push back on you? feel with questions here. Man, is this not what the people fucking want?

Like, I read comic books to like point out the dumb shit and be like, no, my man's too too strong. He's not going out like that. That's what the people are here for. Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. A lot of callbacks in this episode as well. Nick Fury's Captain Marvel page.

Yellow Jacket jumps on Hawkeyes Arrow. Now, the fact that yellow jacket jumps on Hawkeyes Arrow, maybe that has something to do. he has some special anti-thorce serum that he uses. I don't know. The mover, I'll make you move, Natasha to Betty Ross. A.O. said that to her, to Natasha in Civil War.

Colson, his love affair with Captain America. Weird. See, I think actually the killer should have been him. He should have been a weird sex pervert. It's just like going around trying to kill the fucking avenger. That would have been hilarious. Don't do my man's like that. Don't do my man's age as a shield, my goat.

doing me. He's the one who got, hashtag, hashtag, Steve, I love you. Right. Listen, that's his boy. You know what I'm saying? That's his man. That's his man. That's his man. Exactly.

It's not, this is man's. You get more poses for Natasha. All the voice casts, uh, with all the leads except for Iron Man, Tony is really done with it. Who's played by Mike Wingardt, uh, Mike Wingert, shall say, who plays Stark in multiple animated Marvel series. And Black Widow is played by Lake. Bell. I'm a big Lake Bell fan. All right. Just letting you guys know that. For a while,

Lake Bell was first team. She was. Remember that show? You guys remember that show? How to make it in America? Do you remember that? Wait, Lake Bell? Yeah. From How to Make it in America? Yeah. I'm learning so much about you, Ben. If you go back and watch that show, you'll see why. Okay. That's what I'm saying. She was first team for a second. Um, Now, in the spirit of this episode, is there anything from the OG Avengers lineup that you would have changed? Think about the OG Avengers.

Hmm. You know, you got two regular humans on there that are just, you know, assassins. OG Avengers lineup. Yeah. Like, who would I add or who would I subtract? Who would you subtract? What would you change if you were building

a different Avengers lineup? And is this Avengers lineup up starting with Captain America and Captain Marvel, is that a better start to the Avengers than starting with what we did in the comic books, which was essentially we started with Iron Man, all right? And then we start. And then the second one, I think, to be brought into the Avengers initiative would probably have been, was it Captain America?

Captain America was the first. I know he was the first Avenger, but was he the first, want to be approached to join the Avengers or was it Tony Stark? It was Tony. It was Tony. Tony's the first one we see. But Captain America takes place. What year, John me de Blaineerner, what year does Captain America wake up out of the

ice in the MCU? What year was it? I'm going to rock with 2011 because that's when the movie came out. And for the most part, if that's the case, that's after Iron Man, if that's the case. It's three years after. after. Yeah. No, it's the same year. It's the same year. It's the same year. Yeah. Different time, it's the same year. So then he's the first Avenger. So obviously, yeah, so the Avengers are off to a more powerful start if they got Captain America. I'm not rocking with Captain Marvel, even in an

alternate universe being there. I will say, if you swap out Hawkeye and Black Widow with Ant Man and Wasp, I think that would have been more interesting. Ant Man and Was Hawkeye and Black Widow with Ant Man and Wasst. Yeah, it's a better team. That's a better team. Even if we were to go back to the Whedon movie,

I think they're just more interesting. We've learned that. Well, I'll say this. It's a team with more abilities, but there are certain skills that Black Widow brings to the table. Remember, Black Widow was able to use her spy skills to get the information out of Loki.

to figure out what Loki's grand plan was. You know, so Black Widow and Hawkeye could still be in the movie, but I would have liked them to be like, you know, they're bench players. You know what I'm saying? Like, they could get some minutes, but, like, you ain't really like the lineup. We ain't on the lineup yet. I think what I do want to say that even though the team would have been lacking something without Black Widow.

But not Hawkeye, Hawkeye, Hawkeye, Kyle Kuzma? Hawkeye is kind of Kyle Kuzma. Hawkeye Hawkeye's a little bit of Kyle Coozb's but I like Hawkeye

Hawkeye brings an added dimension Hawkeye is plucky I like I like he like even in that movie

he won't wasn't doing too much yeah Kyle Cusma is an NBA champion all right let's slow down on the

fuck out of your Jimmy all right yeah well I'm not not trying to disrespect him man I'm trying to do

what's called L keeping it real keep what do you keep it I mean keep it I mean keep if you want to like you know

he's like a Coastus out of the Kupo, you know, a Devante Kekak, if we want to talk about it. You know what I'm saying? Can we get to the main course of this episode? Can we talk about like all the goodness of Phase 4? Yeah, we can. So look, let's give our final thoughts on this episode of What If. Obviously, you guys have heard a lot of jumbled thoughts and a lot of things that have taken us in different ways. And I think that's positive. I think that's a positive thing.

I think that's what these What If episodes are supposed to do. I really enjoyed it. I like the idea of a different Avengers team. coming. I like the idea of a different look at what Nick Fury's role is. And I think we haven't talked enough about that real quickly. I'll say that seeing Nick Fury front center and not just, because Nick Fury will

never get his own movie. Right? He's not, we're not going to do the Nick Fury movie, right? This is as close to top billing as Nick Fury is going to. He's going to get secret invasion soon. He's going to get secret invasion soon, but even still, though, that's going to be about Nick Fury

placed into a world where this huge, huge secret evasion is happening, and it's still going to be a story that's bigger than Nick Fury that Nick Fury is placed in. This story right here to me is a story where Nick Fury is the world, where he does have to connect the things. And I thought that it was good to see him in a spot where his skills, his skill set, the expertise was absolutely needed. And you could see how wily he is and how resourceful he is. And so I thought that that was a great nod and a little tribute to that character was missed so much to the MCU as well. So I dug that and I kind of enjoyed that.

So that was the main reason why I think I enjoyed this episode so much. And it seems like to me, this wasn't one of your favorites as far as what we've gotten so far. It wasn't one of my favorites. I honestly just had more fun, like just bullshitting with you about like what this new world could be like in this episode. And I think that's actually what the episode is. Like, if I'm going to be real, I think this episode is probably setting up other stuff. It seems like we are going to get a different Avengers team. we might get a President Loki.

This seemed like a setup episode if all of these things are connected, which it's starting to seem like they are. All right. So last thing I'll ask you about it is there's some more these episodes that are out there, the Killmonger one, the zombie one, party, Thor, etc.

Which one are you looking most forward to? I know what it is for me. I won't say this is the one I'm looking most forward to. This is the one which I think has the anticipation. Like, y'all got to get this right. Like, I think that this could be a whole TV series in itself is the Marvel. Zombies.

Like, I'm almost a little bit, I'm almost a little bit mad that they just didn't make, like, the animated, like, animated TV show about Marvel Zombies because, like, that first Marvel Zombies is incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I'm with that. I personally think that for some reason, the Killmonger episode is the one that sticks in my cross, the one I'm most curious of, because I want to see them take that character that is so

angry and so kill crazy. and make him into somebody who could gel with one of the most lovable characters that we've had in the MCU, which is Tony Star. So I'm interested to see what they do with that and how that actually works. That's probably the one for me.

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So we have between the new Spidey teaser trailer, the Eternal's Story trailer, and the 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes Ashong Shi, 90... Wait, can I be? be real vid. Do you think that 92 is going to hold? No.

But look, but look. No, that's not me saying. Like, that's not me saying like the movie's going to be bad. That's also being like, no, we got this with Black Widow where it had a real high approval rating. People were telling me it was the best thing ever. And then like the New York Times review comes out, you're like, oh, this is the second way of reviews. Yeah. I mean, look, the 92, you always want to start high, though.

Because I remember going back and watching some other comic book movies, it's, it's, starts like, oh, if you go on there, it's got a 66 rating to start, then that means it's coming down to the 50s, maybe the high 40s, you know what I mean? So if it starts at 92, your landing place might be 80, 85, which is very strong. What's your guess? What do you think, what do you think the rating for it will be without us even seeing it? Um, if it started at 92, I think the rating will probably fall between 80 and 85, which is a very, very strong. rating. I also think that people are going to be a lot more forgiving with Shang Shi than they are with other movies. Just like, to be honest with you, that they were with Black Panther. I think that

it's going to be a while before we get people to, just if I'm being real with you, give honest reviews about characters that are embodying Marvel's new commitment to diversity. And I've seen that, and that that's just a thing. I would, just to be real with you, that's a thing. The Black Panther agenda you're trying to start. It's not a Black Panther. It's not a Black Panther agenda. It's not a Black Panther agenda.

I'm just letting you, I'm just letting you know. Shang-she, I've heard from people who saw it and Sean. And from the people I've heard who've seen Shankshi, it's good. And we will see it on Friday. We will see it on Friday. Wait, have you gotten like good across the board or have you gotten any good or mixed? Like, I've gotten that the movie is good and that it's on the level of a mid- Marvel movie like an Ant Man or

Guardians of the Galaxy too, which would be good for a first film, right? That would be great. Now, Gardens of the Galaxy is more of a movie that I will put in that 90 range. Like that, this is a great opening film. So I don't think it's probably going to be that good. But I also think that, and rightly so, people are going to be supportive of seeing diverse characters on screen, and that's going to influence them.

to celebrate the movie probably a little bit more. So if Shankshi does end up around 92 or 93%, part of that will be because and there's nothing wrong with this that a lot of people would be less, they don't want to give the movie a bad review because they feel like that says something about them. And that's the thing that's going to happen

for a little while until we get more of these movies, to these films aren't novelty. And when they stop becoming novelty, when they stop becoming something that we have to get all up about and be super excited about that there's an Asian lead that's coming on the film,

then maybe we can look at the movies a little bit more critically and take them for what they are. But for right now, it's incumbent upon a lot of the film going public to first celebrate Shang-shee, first celebrate it. And then secondly, review it.

I think you're going to see a lot of that. You know, I'm a Simu lunatic. You know what I mean? So I'm supporting my boy first day. You know what I'm saying? Simu, like, come on, acknowledge me. I love you on Kim's convenience. But in solidarity, not watching the last season for you, my boy.

Shout out Shang-chi. Anyway, phase four. Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Okay. At this moment, which of these projects, Eternal's, Shang-shi, Spider-Man, are you the most hyped to see?

Talk, it has to be Spider-Man. If I'm going to be real, I think Spider-Man is going to have to be the one that brings home the championship. I think that is the one where everybody's, like, staking everything on this movie, like, just betting that, like, it can get us to the levels.

If not above or at, like, Infinity War, end-game level, it will probably be the closest we get for a long while. I do think that that is the like the anticipation level for them to make that movie work. And I don't actually know if that's fair, but that seems like the one. Okay. Well, let's talk about that. We did not get a chance to discuss the Spider-Man trailer with you.

Your thoughts about the trailer itself. All right. Like, shout out to you and Mao on doing the instant reaction for that. my first reaction honestly was a little bit like, damn, I was thinking about an alternate world where I didn't know any of this shit was going to happen. Would I, like, I just see, like, Doc Ock from, like, Spider-Man 2, one of my favorite superhero movies, like, on screen.

I was like, man, I wish I had that. I wish I could experience it like that. So part of me felt a little bit spoiled because, like, for day straight, everything was trending. Doc Ock was trending, Green Goblin was trending. Everything was trending when the shit got leaked. So I was just like, I was like, oh, when I watched the trailer. I'm like, oh, this affirmed everything.

Right. That, like, I could not escape. Like, I don't know about you, Van. There was a point where you just could not escape what this trailer was going to be before the trailer even came out. Yeah, it had arrested the entire community, right? We had pine for the trailer. Like, Little Spidey was pining for his date that time. We had pine for the trailer. We had asked for the trailer. We had worshiped the trailer. The trailer leaked. And I'm sitting here squinted on my phone. And I'll admit it. I watched the leaked trailer. I'm squinting on my phone on some Reddit board trying to look at it. And it's a completely defeating and terrible experience, yet I'm going through it because my curiosity is running amuck.

Then the trailer gets here, and it's wonderment. It's pure wonderment. It made me feel something that the old MCU, like when I was getting thrust into a new world, that I had no idea what the possibilities are and what the rules were. And to your point about endgame, before endgame, I racked my brain. brain racked it reading theories reading what could happen i was trying to call people that i know at disney i was trying to out and i was trying to get i had all different types of people with their feelers out what's going on what is this people were saying we were going to different dimensions

and and that novel was coming and all of this stuff and then the movie comes and it it it really did deliver on that wonderment and i thought the trailer delivered on the wonderment too. The trailer reset the rules. Does this movie feel like the dynasty moment where like basically the MCU has to prove that they can do it again? Like the Golden State Warriors being like, yo, they got the pieces. Can they get back to what we know?

Like the Infinity War endgame level. And I do think that that's what I want from the movie. Even if like I said, that's unfair where I'm just like, yo, I want you y'all to show me something I've never seen on screen. And like reuniting all the Spider-Men is like that level of like, all right, y'all you're back we're back yeah i mean to be honest with you a little bit because the eternals and shang she and all of that that is a little bit like rebuilding right

yeah yeah you're you're getting new characters in you're rebuilding but now here's your step curry who is spider man who's coming back with his team uh dr strange all of these guys that have won championships with you before and sorry to any midnight writers out there who don't follow basketball all. But, you know, you're with these people. And now you're going to go back and get what you had before, which is, you know, captivating everybody's heart. So I thought that the trailer delivered on making me feel like that was the case. Can I, can we go to Coke Baby Chuck Corner? I listen to the pod. I want to bring some stuff to you after my first reactions after seeing this trailer. Okay, let's go. A lot of people, a lot of fans have noticed this. I don't think that's Dr. Strange. At first, I was like, what is this fucking trailer? What have you all done to massacre Dr. Strange?

he's a prickly guy. He wouldn't be this nice to Peter. No, he wouldn't do this. And then immediately I'm like, that's not Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange would not fuck up a spell like that. This is, like, that's my first guess. I don't think this is our Dr. Strange. I don't think it's a very.

So who is it then? I think it's Mephisto. I'm not doing this. Oh, my God. I'm not doing this. I can't listen to that. All right, this is, I'm putting on, I'm putting on my comic book hat.

I think they are going to base this off the 2007 comic book, Spider-Man one more day where Spider-Man basically has to go to Mephisto I know reverse all this year I think it's Mifisto I do think it's Mephisto here's a thing if it's not Mephisto we need like a blankie fan it's fucking not it's not Mephisto man we need a bed need a band Tid agrees with me there's a devil poster in it I I'm calling my shot because I was one of the people I'm like Loki ain't showing up in K I mean Kang ain't showing up in King ain't showing up in Loki. And then he fucking did.

So I believe in Marvel again. Can you all give me this? No. No. No. No, I'm not here for it. No. No, the Mephisto, like, we got to, we got to, we got to get off the Mephisto thing.

It's Mephisto, bro. It's not Mephisto. So explain to me real quick. Just give me, I'll oblige you for, give me your 30-second Mephisto push. Like why I want him or why I think. it's him. Why do you think it's him? Because I think there are a couple signs that this is in our Dr. Strange. I think our Dr. Strange is very, very competent. I don't think our Dr. Strange, after saving the entire universe, wouldn't let Peter talking to him too much mess up his spell.

And I also just think he would not be that buddy, buddy with Peter. I think he would be nice to Peter, but I just know a pricklier Dr. Strange. And I think that this is going to be someone who was impersonating him. And that's why all these hijinks ensued. So does Wong not know that that's not Stephen Strange? I don't think Wong even knows. That's asking a lot that Wong wouldn't know that someone is impersonating Stephen Strange. Maybe I'm wrong.

This is my hot take. My second hot take, guys. Okay. I think they're killing off Tom Holland in this. All right, man. Kerm, cut his mic. I think they're, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. We need us, we need to find a second host for next week.

I've been waiting. Can Steve host the show? You can get Steve on the show. Charles, what are you talking about? Okay, okay. All right, come on. Come on. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Please, by all means, explain yourself. Explain yourself. I think they are going to kill off Tom Holland and then bring him back. That's what I think is going to happen. Okay. I don't think they're going to replace Tom Holland.

But I think this is how they're going to get Miles Morales into the MCU, and there will be two Spider-Man. Yeah, that looked like his mom in the trailer. That looked like his mom in the trailer, the black lady right there. It looked like Miles Morales's mom. It could possibly be. So in the car, yeah. So you think they...

I actually don't think that'll happen, but I'm trying to talk myself. No, no, no, no, no. Come on, man. No, no, no, no, no, you crawfishing. You crawfishing. I'm standing on my take, yeah. I'm staying on my take. I think that they will momentarily kill Tom Holland.

Miles Morales will rise up to take his place. And then Tom Holland will come back. Okay. So that's, so that there are two Coke Baby Chuck takes on this. Number one, Dr. Strange is Mephisto. Oh, that's Mephisto as a cosplay as Dr. Strange. Number two, Spider-Man dies. Tom Holland's Spider-Man dies in this.

And we get, we get Miles Riles. I'm not mad. I'm not mad if that happens. Because here's my thing. The reason why I think you would have to introduce Miles is, like, how do you have another Spider-Man movie after this? Okay. You know what you're saying? Like, how do you, like, that's what I think they're going to do, like, the Brian Michael Bendis run, Spider-Men.

But to be honest with you, I think you can have another Spider-Man movie after this, depending on what the ramifications of the world are. Because we're seeing the Sinister Six in this movie, right? Obviously, if you watch the trailer, you saw all the, you saw Electro's Lightning, you saw some sand, you saw a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a punerical. You saw Doc Ack. I don't think we saw anything from fucking Rhino. But you see the Sinister 6 in this movie. Yeah. So

the question is, moving forward, what role will the Sinister 6 play in the Spider-Man universe that we've already established? Because Spider-Man's Road Gallery is akin to Batman's Road Gallery in that he has a fantastic road gallery.

He has like a really amazing gallery of enemies. Like one of the most famous rogue galleries in Marvel, right? Maybe the best in Marvel for any one specific character. You know, he's got who is Spider-Man's signature villain? Growing up, I always thought it was Dr. Octopus. Me and my brother got in a fist fight. Dog, it was Green Goblin.

What are you talking about? I'm honest with you. In the era that I started reading Spider-Man, his number one nemesis was Dr. Octopus. It's Green Goblin. Green Goblin killed Gwen Stacy. Like, what are we doing here, man? Bro.

What are we doing here? I get it, my G. In the era that I was watching Spider-Man, it seemed like it was Dr. Octopus, right? Okay, fine. And my brother said, my brother was like, yo, it's Green Gobblers, Green Gobble. And one time he said that Van is so stupid,

he thinks that Dr. Octopus is Spider-Man's main villain. I punched him in his shit. And then he punched me, and then we was going. Over Spider-Man, we fought. I've been doing this. That's why I'm trying to tell people. So, yeah, I get it. I understand.

But bringing the Sinister 6 in, gives put some concrete around spider man's world and kind of gives us the spider man that we are used to because if we're being honest with you Tom Holland's Spider-Man is sort of a redefinition of the character in a way. It's a much more complex Spider-Man

because he fits into a much bigger world. The Sincer Six threatens to give you your friendly neighborhood spider. This is who Spider-Man's fighting. This is what's going on in the neighborhood. This is what's happening with him. So, you know. And here's my last thing.

I don't think actually Miles will appear in this. I just think they will tease him because I think if we get a Spider-Man 4, I would like, because I listen to the pod with you and now, I would like a reversal of the mentor. If like instead of like getting a plucky like Tom Holland, he is now the Tony Stark to where Miles Morales teaching like another kid how to be a superhero. Because I do want at least one movie where we get Tom Holland not being the kid who needs to be mentored. I would like that dynamic flipped. And see, that's the thing for me.

The thing for me is that Tom Holland is still so young. He's still such a young kid, right? And he's still, Tom Holland might be the age now that Toby McGuire was when he started playing Spider-Man or might actually be older than Toby McGuire. Toby McGuire might have been in his 30s when he was playing him. I'm not sure I'd have to go look. But I think that for me,

he's got so many, they're counting on him being around for a lot of movies because he still has such a youthful face. They're still in high school. They're moving the character forward kind of slowly. Yeah. When you really think, like when you think about it,

as far as him being the super confident, I know what I'm doing. Even coming to Dr. Strange like this, in this situation, it's still Spider-Man going, hey, I don't have the answers. Let me figure out what it is that I have to do. There's nothing wrong with that.

But you wonder if they're going to have that same energy for Tom Holland playing Spider-Man if he's even playing Spider-Man when he's 28, 29-30. And he looks more like a growner man. And the character itself has gotten out of high school and is now trying to be in the real world. So Toby McGuire was 26 during Spider-Man 1. Damn, Toby McGuire got old man face. Like, I would have thought he was 30. Right.

And Tom is 25 now. So he's younger in his third Spider-Man movie that Toby McGuire was in his first Spider-Man movie. So there's like a difference between those two guys. Anyway. So now, let's talk about the Eternals. The first question I'm going to ask you is did the Spider-Man No Way Home trailer

just completely neuter the new trailer for Eternals that we got? I'm a little mad. I feel like the new trailer for Spider-Man kind of neuter Chongchi and Eternals in terms of like anticipation, in terms of letting those films like breathe. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know.

Like, like, there was no level of response as high for the, the latest Eternals trailer as there was for Spider-Man. Do you think that was a mistake? What were they going to do? True. They're in an unwinnable situation where I'm just like, it's just not Spider-Man.

Yeah. What were they going to do? I mean, I enjoyed the new Eternals trailer. I'm worried about Eternals. I'm a little worried. I'm not worried that Eternals won't be a good movie. I'm worried that Eternals will be too much of a movie. Speak on it.

Speak on it, man. I'm worried that Eternals, by looking at it, is going to be a sweeping epic, a lyrical, deep, and emotionally touching film that the MCU audience isn't quite ready for at this time. And when I say not quite ready for it, I don't mean they're not ready for the filmmaking.

I mean, people are itching for Marvel to get back on their bullshit. They are. People are itching for Marvel to get back to the shit. They want to have wild moments like in-game. It's crazy. In-game was a big huge deal for Marvel because it's like it was such an event, such a spectacle movie.

And there's going to be an intimacy and a sort of a sort of a, how can I put it? Like an allure and a mysticism to the eternals, right? With these characters that are eons old that have watched and loved

humanity, love is going to be a tremendous theme in the movie. And even the look of it, I wonder if the fans that are waiting to see what happens in no way, home are going to go in with open hearts and open minds for what Eternal looks like it's going to be, which is a different type of Marvel movie, a Marvel movie that has stakes all its own

and is really talking about fundamental questions about humanity's place in the universe and what it means to be human. And if it would have been, if Eternal's is going to be maybe the biggest casualty of reshuffling the schedule a little bit, I'm concerned. I'm concerned a little. I'm concerned, but I do think that I want to give credit where credits do. If we think about the best movies in the MCU, I'm talking Winter Soldier, I'm talking Black Panther, Thor Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy, what have you. In my opinion, those are the ones that happen in a pocket where they don't push the, like, Thor Ragnarok didn't push the story forward that much. It was a good movie because it's like, no, we're going to be zany in this corner.

Same thing with Winter Soldier. It was just like, oh, this is like a movie I can tell anybody to watch. And I do want to, I think the best version of Eternals is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know y'all are waiting for Spider-Man, but we're going to just do our shit over here. And I, but to your point, I don't know if the MCU has a fan base that's willing to do that. And I think part of that problem is, is like, Black Widow kind of tripped up. You know what I'm saying? And like, it didn't, it didn't get people excited enough or trust Marvel enough that they can still do solo movies that aren't world-shattering events. And, like, that might be the thing.

Yeah, also, Black Widow didn't have anything to do with anything, though. And that's the thing about the Black Widow didn't push the story forward. It was unique in that way. I enjoy Black Widow for what it was, but I wonder if people are, man, no way home just makes you go, Jesus, man, this is going to be crazy. She looked crazy, gee. and crazy. You talking about Dr. Strange is, Mephisto. Think about how crazy

that is. Like, we're going nuts here. But I also, but I also do think can Marvel movies even like sustain like solo adventures? And what I mean by that is like, what we talk about the ones we're excited about, we want to see Togne, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland, and one movie with all the villains. We want to see Dr. Strange

and Loki and Wanda all in the same goddamn movie. Like, we're getting to a point where Marvel does have multiple heroes, multiple villains, we're crossing dimensions. We're like, all right, that's cute. Give us the real shit.

And is that going to be a problem where no one has the patience anymore to wait? You know what I mean? I mean, maybe. I think that's a lot of the place that the television shows are going to come in. The television shows are going to come in

to establish characters like Moon Night and Miss Marvel and She Hulk and people like that so that we understand them and get a little bit of their solo journeys and we don't necessarily have to run out to the theaters to do that. And the movies might be more of a situation

to where these characters, where they become team-ups, it's going to be different. Even like, you know, Thor or Four, Guards of the Galaxy, you know, you have all of these different characters

that are going to be in these movies. And we're really like, in the comic book realm now, they're not very many of these books that are part of these big sagas that you read them, that they only have one character in them. That's the whole,

when I was used to read Wolverine series, You read Wolverine series and it would all His solo book It would all be about Who was joining Wolverine And his adventure that time It was Wolverine and he's in New Orleans

And he has to click up with Gambit Or it's Wolverine and he's in Canada And he has to click up with Puck from Alpha Flight Or it's Wolverine and he's for some reason Made an alliance with Black Tom Fucking Cassidy or something And that's kind of the way the adventures would go And because Marvel is in its comic book

Sort of run now you might see fans having more expectation of who's going to pop up in this movie. It's like when you get a, they always just give me about rap records, right? It's like, so-and-so is coming out with a new record. But yeah, we're happy that this person's coming out with new music. And then the first question they ask him is, okay, well, who you got on it? Yeah. See, we're in that, like, rap era for the MCU where it's just like, all right, the album's cute,

but do you got a Jay-Z record on this? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, do you got Kanye popping up? Like, that's what we want to, we want from them. We're just like, we need features. And like, Shang Chi and the Eternals, I don't know yet. But like, if the only features you got is Wong and abomination, well, let's talk about this because the critics are saying that Shangxi

expands the MCU in multiple ways. They're saying that like, you know, we're going to see. the movie this Friday, you know, here on the midnight side of thing. We're going to, so we're going to have fresh takes on Shang Xi next week. That's going to be great or

after the release of the movie. But like, so that next week after releases, we're going to have fresh takes, but we're going to have a time to simmer and brew those takes. But how possibly could a story that seems so singularly set

like Shang Xi, expand the MCU. I am very curious about the assertion from critics that this movie expands the MCU in multiple ways. I'm very, very curious about that. Like, super curious

how it possibly could expand the MCU. I hold, I give that no way. Like, I give people who see, like, the first wave of, like, this expands the MCU. I'm like, we say that about every single MCU. There's no, like, I think it could. I just, like, I have to see it for myself at this point because I'm just like, I can't trust anybody's opinion.

So I sit in the theater. And I'm like, all right, cool. Like, it did do it. And then I will give it his praise. I'm still very excited for Shang Chi. But, like, at this point, it could just stick the landing and convince people that, like, Sean Chi is cool and that Simululu is a star, I will be the happiest little boy ever. Like, I'll just be everything else.

But actually, they need to get thing, thing, feng fume right. If they fuck up fing feng fom, I'm going to be very bad. Yeah. So my thing is, I think it's very little chance that I don't enjoy Shangxi. I think there's very little chance that I don't enjoy the Eternals. We're going to start seeing these movies buttress up against our expectations. And that's a very Star Warsy problem for Marvel to have. Oh, do you think the MCU is going to have the Star Wars problem where it's just like, at this point we expect, like they gave us so much.

We just expect too much. Like I think that's going to actually be one of the problems potentially with Spider-Man, No Way Home. can the craziness of that film ever meet up to our expectations of what we think it will be and it might look that's the thing I think Sean she is going to

benefit for the fact that there are little expectations for the movie besides some cool fights so if it expands the MCU in the ways that the critics are saying that expands to MCU that is actually fantastic that's a huge plus right for that film

I look at I love watching Kung Fu fighting. So when I see that get down, I'm like, I'm already in for Shang-ji. If they can land it, I'm going to be so happy. Like, I'm going to, like, I really am rooting for Shang-Chi as a film. I really wanted to do well. I actually wish they, the movie would have released, and then they would have released

Spider-Man trailer. Right. They could have gave it a little room to breathe. Right. The Spider-Man trailer just, it just makes everything seem less consequential than what it actually is. The Drake of, like, is like the Drake of all this shit, where, like,

Drake will just like, I'm releasing an album. Everybody's like, all right, well, fuck. Now I got to push my own back. I ain't doing this shit. Yeah. We're getting word from TD here. Spider-Man trailer, past end-game trailer views by 65 million.

God damn. That's the thing. Come on, man. Can I ask you guys a question? Go ahead, Jomey. Once again. Jomey. Taking over.

What if? What if No Way Home comes out? And it's mid. Oh, just me. Don't even put that in the air, bro. Don't even put that in the air. Jumby, I'm gonna be honest with you. If no way out comes out, if no way out,

if no way home comes out and is mid, the future of Marvel will be on life support. I think, is, I'm crazy for saying all the hopes of like the MCU kind of currently are writing on like Spider-Man being that movie. being that good. Right. And when I say life support, I mean not life support that the rest of these films

are not going to come out. I mean life support in that it'll be flirting with being where Star Wars with the Star Wars movie franchise is right now. Because you guys think, here's the thing, you guys think that it can't happen, but it can. The only difference between the Star Wars and Marvel is that the MTV still has so many stories to tell, right?

There's still so many characters we haven't seen. whereas in the Skywalker saga, we're inventing new people that we've never seen before and trying to reinvent stuff and trying to tell new stories in a very fixed universe that we understand. And they do it well in so many other places.

They do it well in animation. They do it well. In comic books, they do it well. But just for the movies, it's they have their limitations there that we can't even. They essentially have to tell the same story, right? Over and over again.

And when they try to, do that. Like, Ryan Johnson got beat about the head by the community. They're too attached to the source material. They're too attached to the work. So if no way home comes out and they can't deliver, there's a possibility that the MCU movies might suffer the same fate in terms of being less than celebrated, that the movies themselves might lose their power,

Almost like the Star Wars franchise. Before we go, I know we're running long. Just one thought experiment. Jomey, can you stay here real quick for me? I'm right here. I'm right here. All right. Thought experiment.

What, like, what's the biggest thing that would make no way home mid? Like, what is the thing that they have to get right? And if they get wrong, we're going to leave the theater, like, being like, nah. Like, we, the MCU pack is in the air. I know I have my thing. I do think if Toby. I think if Toby O'Guire and Andrew Garfield are not substantial parts of this movie.

I'm not talking about cameos. I'm talking about like, yo, we've got so many reports of this. If they are not paling around with Tom Holland for a good portion of this movie, I think people are going to be so upset. Oh, man.

If they cameo them, it's a disaster. Yeah, absolutely. If they cameo them is a disaster. I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to go out on the limb right now and say, there's no possible way that Spider-Man no way home can be met.

It's just too much happening. You're saying it's a championship or bus? You're saying there's no way. No, I'm saying it's, it's impossible that the movie would be made. The movie can't be made. The movie can't, it's a can't miss movie. I'm putting that much pressure

on the brass of bar. If they don't have Toby McGuire in that suit, people like swinging around with Tom Holland, people are going to be pissed. I'm going to be pissed. I'll just go straight. I'm going to be straight with you. Jomey, am I like wiling by saying like,

No, no, no. They need to be in this. I talked about this. I talked about this, I think, to Mal sometime. And in Slack, it was just like, we've had so many reports, so many, you know, leaks about them being in the movie. If, I mean, the thing I said, if they weren't in the movie, but like, to your point, if they're like,

if they just show up at the end, like, hey, what's going on? Oh, I see y'all did this. And there's no like real action between them, them fighting with Tom Holland against all their past villains. Then yeah, that would be a tough pill to swallow walking out of the theater, honestly. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to happen. But that's the alternate universe where I'm like, dog, how did y'all fuck up like a win? Like an unmitigated win like this.

So I would be disappointed if the villains are just like, you know, one dimensional. you know like I guess it's the thing is so much movie that like my question would be how do they make everybody feel like they're supposed to be there true right again we're not just throwing things you know at the wall I don't need them to I don't need the villains to be like have these great arcs I just want to see all the villains together if we don't get the sinister six that's also going to be something where I'm just like see what I'm saying see see what I was saying before about the the audience's expectations of what the three of us just did I just said the movie can't miss,

which means if the movie is anything less than fucking amazing, then I'm going to be destroyed. Wait, Vann, if you, if the Sinister Sticks is not in this, like, if you don't see them all together. They're in the movie. But I'm saying if they're not together,

if we don't see three Spider-Men going against like Auk, Electro, Green Goblin, Sandman, blah, blah, blah, all at once, is that going to be like a letdown? I don't know. By the way, TD came in a little question. we'll get out of his TV, producer TD says,

is Doc Ock saying, hey, Peter, a hint that he's talking to McGuire? Technically, he shouldn't know Tom Holland is Peter. I personally think he's talking to Toby McGuire. I think he's talking to Toby McGuire. Like, I really do in that scene. I think that was the scene that confirmed Tommy McGuire being in the movie. I think he's talking to Toby McGuire. Yeah, he wouldn't recognize Tom Holland.

Or unless he's in the suit and he's just like, oh, I see you in a spider suit. that's, I know that Peter is Spider-Man. Exactly. This is a nightmare scenario I had when I was watching this. Is there any way when Tom Holland goes to each dimension,

he's not actually meeting them? He's in their body. Oh no, come on now. Superior Spider-Man? You're trying to do Superior Spider-Man? It's time to go. It's time to go. It's time to go. All right. All right.

I'm going to give you a lot. Okay. It's time to go. It's time to go. It's time to go. It's time to go. 2022 is going to be a great year for Marvel as well because some of our old favorites are coming back Thor, Black Panther, the Marvels. So a lot of stuff is going to happen.

But look, we're coming into a crazy fourth quarter. This is going to be a fourth quarter that Marvel's got to get their Kobe on, their Jordan on, they got to get, you know, their Kevin Durant on, any player that you guys recognize as being clutching in the fourth quarter.

You really hate LeBron. No, LeBron. LeBron. You don't think about LeBron as fourth quarter clutchness, but LeBron is the best player. All right.

It's a best player in all time. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. All right. So look, that is a wrap for us, guys. We are out of here. Friday heading to the House of Mal with Mall for her signature deep dive episodes.

Next Wednesday, a special crossover edition of the House of Midnight. There's going to be us, Mal, together. The House of Midnight is coming. It's going to be dark in here, baby. Mephisto dark. Make sure to follow at Rigoververse on Facebook.

Instagram, and Twitter. Join us and send us questions and ideas and thoughts. And a reminder to do this,

this is very important for you guys who are listening. Pitch us on other things in fandom that you will want us to talk about.

I started watching Berserk again because we were talking about Berserk. I would love to talk about some berserk on here. I've been,

I've upped my, my, my, my Aidan dosage because I've been watching attack on Titan and it's emotionally taxing, baby.

Okay? I tried to watch Evangeline Lilly. What's the name of that shit? Neon Genesis Evangelion. I tried to watch Neon Genesis. I can't do it. I can only do one superhedy anime at a time. So I can't do both Attack on Titan

and Evangeline Lily show at the same time. Oh, my God. Man. No, my mission, bro. Evangelion, bro. Like at the same time, I can't, I can't do them both. All right. But, you know, I'm really into this.

And I'm really into anime. And maybe we should do like an anime, anime portion of the show. Because it's- I'm into this idea that we do before it gets fourth quarter MCU-ish. We just do an other episode where they just pitch us and we just go. Like we just do. We just do everything that anybody's ever. Right, right, right.

And we do have a new midnight court coming soon, guys. And this was going to be a good one. Got a new Midnight Court coming soon. Okay, we got John Little Spidey Kerma, who filled in today for Steve Alman. Okay, Little Spidey. You guys, I want everybody to do this on Facebook and on Twitter. I want you to write in with tips for Little Spidey on his next day.

I want you guys to write in with tips. Just give broad tips. This is for both the fellas and the ladies. Because we want to make sure we create gentlemen out of here. He's like, he's little spied. If y'all at me, you're getting blocked. Wait, Kerm, can I ask you a good question on your birthday? Kerm, I have one question before we go.

Happy birthday, little spidey. Thank you. Do you tell girls like in the club, you just like, yo, I'm Jonathan Kermer. They're like, who? You know, Kerm from no skips. Have you ever done that? Yes, yes. I've not broken out my celebrity name yet.

Nah. Yeah, yeah. So shout out to Little Spidey. Shout out to Jummi, The Explaner, Adirond. Shout out to Arjuna from Gopal. And shout out to producer TD. These are all the producers that make this show possible. And we love having them around.

I'm serious to do this, guys. Send Little Spidey tips on how to talk to a girl. How do you talk to a Goyle? Little Spidey, happy birthday, Jonathan. I hope you didn't think I wasn't going to fuck with you on your birthday. We're signing off, Charles. Take us out, baby. Guys, this Midnight Boys was tense.

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